Hello my SI friends,
As time passes and my H and I talk, process and live the dissonance is so overwhelming.
I asked my H a question a few days ago and although I’m amazed at how deep he’s dug, how he can articulate his own thoughts and feelings, how much he has reflected and sat with himself, his answer has gutted me.
I asked if being my husband was harder pre DD or post DD. He said that because of his behaviour over the years and how he was raised he ‘kept’ me as a wife, he was ‘fake’ because he had to be, he knew I despised people that were like him (people who were cheaters) and I’d hate him and leave him if I knew, he hated what he had done and wanted to delete it but it was always there, he always told himself that because he provided and took care of everything financially this overrode his sins but it was always there. He saw my emotional needs over the years as nagging because obviously he was giving me everything I needed financially and it seemed nothing he ever did was good enough, when we moved to our fixer upper home in 2018 he said that he struggled with my emotional needs, he noticed that also I’d sort of ‘given up’ trying to ask for emotional support and I was sort of a bad ass that didn’t need him anymore ( this is true, when I hit peri I gave up trying for emotional depth with him I just decided to accept him for who he was and love him warts and all) . When on the occasion I did ask for me emotional needs to be met he would see it as an attack, along came AP who demanded nothing and offered everything, he said the shit he’d told himself about me simply wasn’t true and deep down he knew that, he just didn’t know how to get himself out of the mess he’d created. He said his avoidant approach was to hold his boundaries and hope AP would get the message, get fed up and disappear 
.
He explained after DD, therapy and over a year later he sees his flaws, he sees completely differently, not having to pretend is like air, he explained changes he’s seen in me that he knows are because he’s shown up. He said to answer the question it’s easier post DD, but the pain caused is the most horrific part.
Lots of other things were shared but this was the gist of it, now it’s one thing to know in your head that your H is not emotionally present throughout your 25 year marriage, but to sit through a conversation without saying a word and listen to this, that you have been married to someone wearing a mask, you were ‘managed’ and ‘kept’ is the most real but gutting thing I’ve ever heard.
All I can say really is well, this is shit, really shit. I’ll give him this though, not in a million years did I ever think my H could ever do what he’s done this past year or so. I told him that until he could give me an explanation as to why all this happened then I will never settle, he told me he would give me everything, he has and then some. But oh the dissonance, how can this man who has cut himself open for me be also capable of such despicable behaviour.
How on earth my SI friends do you calm the dissonance?
